Meet Sofia Medina

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sofia Medina a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sofia, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

My parents are immigrants from Mexico. They started off newly married with almost no money in Michigan, but they had a vision for the life they wanted their future children to have. My parents are extremely hard-working and took many risks to get to where they are now. Because of this, I naturally saw my parents life and watched and mirrored their work ethic. My parents never let me quit when things got difficult but instead encouraged me to persevere.
Additionally, I grew up swimming. I swam competitively for twelve years. For those who have not experianced swimming in that arena, swimming is an extremely mental sport that requires a lot of mental fortitude and perseverance. I believe that swimming also shaped my work ethic because it requires another level of perseverance that is not normally experianced in normal life. It requires you to push through physical pain until the completion of practice and do it again the next day.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am a college student who started writing a travel blog while bored one day during my study abroad year in Dublin. The unique think about my blog is that it is a compilation of stories from 21 years of travel with my family. It is written from the perspective of my childhood memories and I hope it shows that travel is so much more than the places you visit or the foods you eat.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I have always had a love of writing. It is one of my greatest strengths and I truly believe that my blog has made so many people laugh because my mom allowed for my love of writing to be developed in middle and high school.

I also think that appreciating my childhood memories had a huge impact on opening the blog. I have recounted my memories to friends and family for years and it helped to keep the memories alive so I could share them with the world.

Finally, I think that my love for stories also allows me to transfer my memories of childhood travels into good and entertaining narratives.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

I am a huge fan of J. R. R. Tolkien’s works. The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit are incredible works of art with unique storylines. I learned from his works the beauty of storytelling. However, the plots of these works also resonate with me very deeply. These works are stories of adventures. For me, having moved 12 times and having visited 20+ countries, my whole life has been an adventure.
There is a quote within The Hobbit where Gandalf tells Biblbo Baggins “The world is not in your books and maps. It’s out there.” For me, I want to translate it into modern speech and tell my readers, “The world is not on your screens. It’s out there.” There is a big beautiful world to discover and explore and that quote helps in my travel curiosity. I want to know that I have lived my life to its fullest and traveling and writing my blog helps me to accomplish that goal.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://onegirlandabigworld.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onegirlandabigworld.travel?igsh=a2F4Y3ozN2NrbmFm